mortal
pronunciation
How to pronounce mortal in British English:
UK [ˈmɔːtl]
How to pronounce mortal in American English:
US [ˈmɔːrtl]
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- Noun:
- a human being
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- Adjective:
- subject to death
- involving loss of divine grace or spiritual death
- unrelenting and deadly
- causing or capable of causing death
Word Origin
- mortal
- mortal: [14] Mortal goes back ultimately to the Indo-European base *mor-, *mr- ‘die’ (source also of English murder). From it were descended the Latin words mortuus ‘dead’ (source of English mortuary [14] and the 19th-century American coinage mortician) and mors ‘death’. The adjectival derivative of mors was mortālis, which reached English via Old French mortal, mortel. Also based on mors was the late Latin verb mortificāre ‘kill’, hence metaphorically ‘subdue desires’, from which English gets mortify [14].=> mortgage, mortify, mortuary, murder
- mortal (adj.)
- mid-14c., "deadly," also "doomed to die," from Old French mortel "destined to die; deserving of death," from Latin mortalis "subject to death, mortal, of a mortal, human," from mors (genitive mortis) "death," from PIE base *mer- "to die," with derivatives referring to death and human beings" (cognates: Sanskrit mrtih "death," martah "mortal man;" Avestan miryeite "dies," Old Persian martiya- "man;" Armenian meranim "die;" Latin mori "to die;" Lithuanian mirtis "mortal man;" Greek brotos "mortal" (hence ambrotos "immortal"); Old Church Slavonic mrutvu "dead;" Old Irish marb, Welsh marw "died;" Old English morþ "murder"). The most widespread Indo-European root for "to die," forming the common word for it except in Greek and Germanic. Watkins says it is "possibly" the same as PIE *mer- "rub, pound, wear away" (see morbid).
- mortal (n.)
- "mortal thing or substance," 1520s, from mortal (adj.). Latin mortalis also was used as a noun, "a man, mortal, human being."
Antonym
Example
- 1. Or else he would forego his mortal nature .
- 2. Apollo gave him all his love forgetting he was a mere mortal .
- 3. Negativity is the mortal sin of the genius .
- 4. Even so , debt restructurings are no mortal threat to the eurozone .
- 5. There were attacks on theologians , who , hobbes maintained , claimed to know more about god than mortal minds could discover .